Milwaukee Bucks' Gary Neal (12) is shown during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Milwaukee Bucks, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Photo: Lynne Sladky, Associated Press

Milwaukee Bucks' Gary Neal (12) is shown during the first half of...

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Former Spurs guard Gary Neal (left), trying to chase down Nando De Colo on Sunday, signed with Milwaukee during the offseason.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas / San Antonio Express-News

Former Spurs guard Gary Neal (left), trying to chase down Nando De...

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Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard dunks as Milwaukee's Luke Ridnour (left) and Larry Sanders look on helplessly during Sunday night's game at the AT&T Center. Leonard had 11 points and five rebounds in a 110-82 victory.

Milwaukee guard Gary Neal found himself in a place he'd never been before — the visitor's locker room at the AT&T Center — struggling to put words to a feeling he had not experienced before this season.

In the hours before the Spurs routed the Bucks 110-82 on Sunday, the distance between Neal's borrowed chair and the Spurs' locker room felt like the distance between San Antonio and Milwaukee, which felt like the distance between paradise and purgatory.

“Thirty-one and nine,” Neal said, admiring his former team's Western Conference-leading record three hours before it improved to 32-9. “Geez. Must be nice.”

It was to nobody's surprise that Neal's new team stumbled into his old home court and promptly played dead.

The Bucks are 7-33, the poorest record in the NBA, and haven't won since New Year's Eve.

Milwaukee wouldn't ring up its first victory of 2014 on Sunday, wouldn't even come close. Not even against a Spurs team missing four key players including All-Star point guard Tony Parker, who rested his sore right shin.

Instead, the Spurs got season highs from Patty Mills (20 points), Jeff Ayres (13) and little-used point guard Nando De Colo (13), who has spent most of his season tearing up the Development League, to send the Bucks to their ninth consecutive loss.

Before the game, coach Gregg Popovich demanded the Spurs approach the matchup with the proper level of respect.

“We expect them to play tonight as if we were playing Miami,” Popovich said.

The Bucks did their best to stretch the limits of the Spurs' imagination.

The Spurs closed the first quarter on a 15-0 run to grab a 29-16 lead and remove any doubt from the final three quarters. The cushion swelled to 28 in the second half, as the Spurs reprised the 109-77 win earned Dec. 11 in Milwaukee.

The fearsome fivesome of Mills, Ayres, De Colo, Aron Baynes and Cory Joseph combined for 67 points on 26-of-42 shooting.

“There's never any slippage in that (focus),” Ayres said. “It's never, 'Pop, man, calm down, we're up 20.' Every game, you have to treat it as if it's going to help you win a championship. That's how we played.”

The Spurs were so on point — and the Bucks so unfathomably bad — that forward Malcolm Thomas arrived fresh off the plane from the D-League and promptly notched nine rebounds and two blocks in his season debut.

Early in the third quarter, Milwaukee coach Larry Drew called a timeout, ostensibly to conduct a team vote between ricin- or arsenic-laced Gatorade in the postgame locker room.

When the Bucks emerged, they lined up gamely at one end to play defense — a good sign, except it was Milwaukee's ball.

Neal, of course, is not used to this level of dysfunction and disorganization. Not after spending three seasons with the Spurs.

He could have remained with the Spurs had he accepted a qualifying offer of $1.11 million last summer. Instead, Neal chose two years and $6.5 million in Milwaukee, where he had not played in the previous six games until Sunday, when he went 1 for 8.

“When you're evaluating job choices, the financial aspect comes into it,” said Neal, 29. “I think I made the best decision for me and my family. I didn't know the team would struggle in the manner of 7-33, and I didn't know I'd be getting DNPs.”

Asked what he misses most about his time in San Antonio, Neal did not hesitate.

“If you just look at the record, winning,” Neal said.

Neal's season of learning how the other half lives continued Sunday. He watched Mills knock down the sort of open 3-pointers he used to get with the Spurs.

Someone asked Neal about last year's Finals, highlighted by his 24 points in Game 3.

“That seems like 10 years ago,” Neal said with a wistful smile.

Having parted ways with the Spurs, Neal and his former team have headed in opposite directions. Sunday, they were two ships passing in the night, with the Bucks playing the role of Titanic.